Handy Andy Volume I Part 10

"I brought it to your honour."

"No, you didn't," said Murphy. "You've made some mistake."

"Divil a mistake I made," answered Andy, very stoutly. "I wint home the minit you gev it to me."

"Did you go home direct from my house to the squire's?"

"Yis, sir, I did--I went direct home, and called at Mr. M'Garry's by the way for some physic for the childre."

"That's it!" said Murtough; "he changed my enclosure for a blister there; and if M'Garry has only had the luck to send the bit o'

parchment to O'Grady, it will be the best joke I've heard this month of Sundays."

"He did! he did!" shouted Tom Durfy; "for don't you remember how O'Grady was after M'Garry this morning?"

"Sure enough," said Murtough, enjoying the double mistake. "By dad!

Andy, you've made a mistake this time that I'll forgive you."

"By the powers o' war!" roared d.i.c.k the Devil; "I won't forgive him what he did now, though. What do you think?" said he, holding out the pistols, and growing crimson with rage, "may I never fire another shot, if he hasn't crammed a brace of bullets down the pistols before I loaded them; so no wonder you burned prime, Ned."

There was a universal laugh at d.i.c.k's expense, whose pride in being considered the most accomplished regulator of the duello was well known.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k! you're a pretty second!" was shouted by all.

d.i.c.k, stung by the laughter, and feeling keenly the ridiculous position in which he was placed, made a rush at Andy, who, seeing the storm brewing, gradually sneaked away from the group, and when he perceived the sudden movement of d.i.c.k the Devil, took to his heels, with d.i.c.k after him.

"Hurra!" cried Murphy, "a race--a race! I'll bet on Andy--five pounds on Andy."

"Done!" said the squire: "I'll back d.i.c.k the Divil."

"Tare an' ouns!" roared Murphy, "how Andy runs! Fear's a fine spur."

"So is rage," said the squire. "d.i.c.k's hot-foot after him. Will you double the bet?"

"Done!" said Murphy.

The infection of betting caught the bystanders, and various gages were thrown and taken up upon the speed of the runners, who were getting rapidly into the distance, flying over hedge and ditch with surprising velocity, and, from the level nature of the ground, an extensive view could not be obtained, therefore Tom Durfy, the steeple-chaser, cried, "Mount, mount! or we'll lose the fun--into our saddles, and after them."

Those who had steeds took the hint, and a numerous field of hors.e.m.e.n joined in the pursuit of Handy Andy and d.i.c.k the Devil, who still maintained great speed. The hors.e.m.e.n made for a neighbouring hill, whence they could command a wider view; and the betting went on briskly, varying according to the vicissitudes of the race.

"Two to one on d.i.c.k--he's closing."

"Done! Andy will wind him yet."

"Well done--there's a leap! Hurra! d.i.c.k's down! Well done, d.i.c.k!--up again and going."

"Mind the next quickset hedge--that's a rasper, it's a wide gripe, and the hedge is as thick as a wall--Andy'll stick in it--mind him--well leaped, by the powers! Ha! he's sticking in the hedge--d.i.c.k'll catch him now. No, by jingo! he's pushed his way through--there, he's going again on the other side. Ha! ha! ha! ha! look at him--he's in tatters!

he has left half of his breeches in the hedge!"

"d.i.c.k is over now. Hurra! he has lost the skirt of his coat! Andy is gaining on him--two to one on Andy."

"Down he goes!" was shouted as Andy's foot slipped in making a dash at another ditch, into which he went head over heels, and d.i.c.k followed fast, and disappeared after him.

"Ride! ride!" shouted Tom Durfy; and the hors.e.m.e.n put their spurs into the flanks of their steeds, and were soon up to the scene of action.

There was Andy, rolling over and over in the muddy bottom of a ditch, floundering in rank weeds and duck's meat, with d.i.c.k fastened on him, pummelling away most unmercifully, but not able to kill him altogether, for want of breath.

The hors.e.m.e.n, in a universal _screech_ of laughter, dismounted, and disengaged the unfortunate Andy from the fangs of d.i.c.k the Devil, who was dragged out of the ditch much more like a scavenger than a gentleman.

The moment Andy got loose, away he ran again, with a rattling "Tally-ho!" after him, and he never cried stop till he earthed himself under his mother's bed in the parent cabin.

Murtough Murphy characteristically remarked, that the affair of the day had taken a very whimsical turn;--"Here are you and I, squire, who went out to shoot each other, safe and well, while one of the seconds has come off rather worse for the wear; and a poor devil, who had nothing to say to the matter in hand, good, bad, or indifferent, is nearly killed."

The squire and Murtough then shook hands, and parted friends half an hour after they had met as foes; and even d.i.c.k contrived to forget his annoyance in an extra stoup of claret that day after dinner--filling more than one b.u.mper in drinking _confusion_ to Handy Andy, which seemed a rather unnecessary malediction.

CHAPTER IV

After the friendly parting of the foes (_pro tempore_), there was a general scatter of the party who had come to see the duel: and how strange is the fact, that as much as human nature is p.r.o.ne to shudder at death under the gentlest circ.u.mstances, yet men will congregate to be its witnesses when violence aggravates the calamity! A public execution or a duel is a focus where burning curiosity concentrates; in the latter case, Ireland bears the palm for a crowd; in the former, the annals of the Old Bailey can _amply_ testify. Ireland has its own interest, too, in a place of execution, but not in the same degree as England. They have been too used to hanging in Ireland to make it piquant: "_toujours perdrix_" is a saying which applies in this as in many other cases. The gallows, in its palmy days, was shorn of its terrors: it became rather a pastime. For the victim it was a pastime with a vengeance; for through it all time was past with him. For the rabble who beheld his agony, the frequency of the sight had blunted the edge of horror, and only sharpened that of unnatural excitement. The great school, where law should be the respected master, failed to inspire its intended awe;--the legislative lesson became a mockery; and death, instead of frowning with terror, grinned in a fool's cap from the scaffold.

This may be doubted now, when a milder spirit presides in the councils of the nation and on the bench; but those who remember Ireland not very long ago, can bear witness how lightly life was valued, or death regarded. Ill.u.s.trative of this, one may refer to the story of the two basket-women in Dublin, who held gentle converse on the subject of an approaching execution.

"Won't you go see de man die to-morrow, Judy?"

"Oh no, darlin'," said Judy. (By-the-bye, Judy p.r.o.nounced the _n_ through her nose, and said "_d_o.")

"Ah do, jewel," said her friend.

Judy again responded, "_D_o."

"And why won't you go, dear?" inquired her friend again.

"I've to wash de child," said Judy.

"Sure, didn't you wash it last week?" said her friend, in an expostulatory tone.

"Oh, well, I _won't_ go," said Judy.

"Throth, Judy, you're ruinin' your health," said this soft-hearted acquaintance; "dere's a man to die to-morrow, and you won't come--augh!--you _d_ever take _d_o divarshin!"

And wherefore is it thus? Why should tears bedew the couch of him who dies in the bosom of his family, surrounded by those who love him, whose pillow is smoothed by the hand of filial piety, whose past is without reproach, and whose future is bright with hope? and why should dry eyes behold the duellist or the culprit, in whom folly or guilt may be the cause of a death on which the seal of censure or infamy may be set, and whose futurity we must tremble to consider? With more reason might we weep for the fate of either of the latter than the former, and yet we _do_ not. And why is it so? If I may venture an opinion, it is that nature is violated: a natural death demands and receives the natural tribute of tears; but a death of violence falls with a stunning force upon the nerves, and the fountain of pity stagnates and will not flow.

Though there was a general scattering of the persons who came to see the duel, still a good many rode homeward with Murphy, who, with his second, Tom Durfy, beside him, headed the party, as they rode gaily towards the town, and laughed over the adventure of Andy and d.i.c.k.

"No one can tell how anything is to finish," said Tom Durfy; "here we came out to have a duel, and, in the end, it turned out a hunt."

"I am glad you were not in at _my_ death, however," said Murphy, who seemed particularly happy at not being killed.